I'm still using the old sources.list, the ones based on the official Debian repos and used before Mint opened its incoming and latest repos. I've modificated a little bit the file and the preferences file. Do you think I can continue using this sources.list without problems (meaning : problems coming from the mix Mint/Debian and not bugs inherent to Debian Testing itself) ?

If that's not possible, how may I make the transition, given that a lot of my packages are from a newer version than those of the "current" Debian Mint repo ? May I drop the Mint part and just go fully Debian ?

With this list i'm running LMDE since October last year, never had to reinstall it and using backups i create with qt4-fsarchiverwere seldom neccessary. So there is no reason for me to discover the secrets of apt-pinning.

I'm still using the old sources.list, the ones based on the official Debian repos and used before Mint opened its incoming and latest repos. I've modificated a little bit the file and the preferences file. Do you think I can continue using this sources.list without problems (meaning : problems coming from the mix Mint/Debian and not bugs inherent to Debian Testing itself) ?

If that's not possible, how may I make the transition, given that a lot of my packages are from a newer version than those of the "current" Debian Mint repo ? May I drop the Mint part and just go fully Debian ?

Yes, you can drop the mint part and go to straight debian, but it really isn't necessary. You would lose all the mint stuff such as fontconfig, artwork etc. (see section origin in synaptic for details). Or you can change your pin priorities. This way (at least to my understanding of apt-pinning) debian would overwrite only packages with the same name and leave the extra mint packages intact. If you want to make the jump to pure debian anyway and want to be sure about the sources, check this site: http://debgen.simplylinux.ch/index.php

Since the fresh installation points to testing, and downgrading isn't a good idea, I used the release cycle as a tool. After installation, I changed the original Testing for Squeeze, which was Testing at the time, so nothing changed. When Squeeze became stable, I changed Squeeze for Stable, so nothing changed again.And now I have a stable Mint Debian system. Almost flawless - I just have to make sure to never upgrade Firefox to anything from 4 up. Let's see what happens when Wheezy becomes Stable.

I have a couple of questions:1. you say "Don‘t forget to disable sources after each action and load synaptic for new."How does one diable sources? Does just closing synaptic do it? If the update manager is running does it have consequences here?

2. If I open a terminal window and type apt-get update I get messages like this:W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/import i386 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/packages.linuxmint.com_dists_debian_import_binary-i386_Packages) and I take it from the message that lists in /var/lib/apt/lists are being read too. Can someone explain how the various sources lists are used and is there/should there be some way to consolidate the lists into one?

the # disables the source.if you forget to refresh synaptic after you disabled the source, with the next update, no matter if you use update manager or the command sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, your system will be updated to unstable.Synaptic does not forget what is loaded.

2. Seems like you have a double entry in your sources.list. Please post the output of

How to use the sources.list i described in my first post. You should decide for one. 1.3 - a sources.list with all repositories that can be used - is a list which contains all main sources. Please read again and lets talk about it after we know your output of inxi -r.

I simply did not read your post carefully enough to catch that you had sources from testing and experiemntal and were informing folks to be mindful to comment out (disable) the exp. ones. But about the sources in (/var/lib/apt/lists/ - I've never know of the existence of these and don't know how they were generated.

I have taken your list from the first post and put it into /etc/apt/sources.list. Being careful to disable oll the old entries. Thanks for all of your efforts there at Linux Mint.

Due to the lack of updates/upgrades because of the very busy schedule of the few devs LM has, I just did a CLI upgrade of my LMDE install using the sources.list posted above. When the devs are able to get the time to upgrade LMDE (after LM 13), then I'll change my repos back to LMDE so I can see what I missed. I just hope I don't break something in the meantime. Thanks for the info - LMDE is a great distro, I'm not giving up on it, just trying to keep up with 'Testing' !

If you're trying to track Testing until the updater is back on track, this one should help. I don't have any errors at all - try copying and pasting again Just be sure you don't uncomment any source you don't want to use!

Finally got it! it took a complete reload, the only disk that would install is the 201010xx, the newer release dosen't work, so I had to start and update dist upgrade to squeeze to get things on track now the repos show correctly and I can normally add the latest packages.

dwainhead;Squeeze is the 'stable' version and Wheezy is the 'testing.' Since you "upgraded" to Squeeze, I think you actually downgraded your LMDE from Testing to Stable, which means that it's no longer going to work as a 'rolling release' - am I right or wrong I know that you can still dist-upgrade, but you won't be tracking the Testing repos with Squeeze, so doesn't that let you out of a true 'rolling release' A dist-upgrade just upgrades the Woody/Sarge/Etch/Lenny/Squeeze "Official" releases only, rather than moving on the the newer Wheezy, and whatever comes after that. You may have to upgrade the kernel (or not), but that can be done the Debian way or by using smxi. With a 'rolling release' you should never have to re-install a newer release of LMDE/Debian (like Wheezy) to have the latest/greatest because it always stays up with the latest/greatest every time you go to a terminal and type in (as root)

Software packages in development are either uploaded to the project distribution named unstable (also known as sid), or to the experimental repository. Software packages uploaded to unstable are normally versions stable enough to be released by the original upstream developer, but with the added Debian-specific packaging and other modifications introduced by Debian developers. These additions may be new and untested. Software not ready yet for the unstable distribution is typically placed in the experimental repository.

After a version of a software package has remained in unstable for a certain length of time (depending on the urgency of the software's changes), that package is automatically migrated to the testing distribution. The package's migration to testing occurs only if no serious (release-critical) bugs in the package are reported and if other software needed for package functionality qualifies for inclusion in testing.

Since updates to Debian software packages between official releases do not contain new features, some choose to use the testing and unstable distributions for their newer packages. However, these distributions are less tested than stable, and unstable does not receive timely security updates. In particular, incautious upgrades to working unstable packages can sometimes seriously break software functionality. Since September 9, 2005 the testing distribution's security updates have been provided by the testing security team.

After the packages in testing have matured and the goals for the next release are met, the testing distribution becomes the next stable release. The timing of the release is decided by the Release Managers, and in the past the exact date was rarely announced earlier than a couple of weeks beforehand.

bootmakr wrote:dwainhead;Squeeze is the 'stable' version and Wheezy is the 'testing.' Since you "upgraded" to Squeeze, I think you actually downgraded your LMDE from Testing to Stable, which means that it's no longer going to work as a 'rolling release' - am I right or wrong

Well I had installed using the 201012xx spin, which was before squeeze was a release, it was testing at the time, so I'm sure I'm back on track for rolling release with the LMDE repos, everything is installing and updated fine now and it's happy with the mint LMDE repos. Which make me happy! so now I can track with wheezy and keep it rolling. Nvidia driver installed now, both monitors active and getting the software instaled I want, now I got time to migrate my windows files and do some work..

Hi dwainhead:I guess, by your answer, you have checked your "sources.list" and everything is pointed to "testing" rather than to "Squeeze." If you are still pointed to "Squeeze" you will only update from Squeeze repos which are now in the "stable" category, right? If you are pointed to "testing" repos, you will be upgrading to the "testing" or "Wheezy" repos. IOW, to make sure you have a rolling-release, keep the repos pointed to Debian Testing (or the LMDE repos when they get updated), not to a specific release name like the Woody/Sarge/Etch/Lenny/Squeeze/Wheezy "Official" releases - otherwise, you'll just be upgrading to the latest updates/upgrades of whatever "Official" release name is listed in your sources.list.

Even if you use the debian sources.list generator you still have to remove all of the words that say "Wheezy" and type "Testing" in their place if you want to have a rolling-release. It's the same with other distros that I have used - antiX, sidux, Kanotix, Arch, etc. - they don't point to their "Official" release name, they point to their latest repos that have been tweaked for that particular distro, but not to a particular release name of that distro, so their distro will be constantly upgrading with Debian Testing or Sid (or Arch) instead of being stuck into one particular release, (which will eventually become stale and then be called legacy, backported etc.) - that's what makes it a rolling-release. To prove my point, just try installing an old Woody or Sarge 'stable' on a small partition, don't change the repos, and then try to update/upgrade/dist-upgrade You will probably end up doing a lot of Googling to find backports that will bring it up to somewhere close to today's distros - IF you can even find some backports!

If you're happy with the Squeeze repos, you've most likely got a very stable LMDE, and will probably not have any problems until, like Woody/Sarge/Etch, etc., many of the updates/upgrades are no longer available because everyone else, (Debian//Mepis/Ubuntu/LMDE), has moved on - I prefer to have the rolling-release as outlined by the devs, so until they get the MUD updated after they roll out LM13, I can just use the Debian Testing repos instead of the LMDE repos to keep it updated - that's just one of the positives of using Linux instead of a proprietary OS. I wish you great success with your LMDE OS of choice, it'll be set up the way you want it, it's not set up according to someone else's idea of what you should-have/need-to-have/have-to-have (including me :wink)

I just don't like to have to reinstall all the time like Mepis, Ubuntus, DebianStable, and other distros do, it's easier for me to just do an update/upgrade, but some people swear by the "every-six-months" install/upgrade, they hate the idea of a rolling release, because they might miss something. I don't care about missing something as long as my OS works the way I want it to for as long as possible without having to constantly reinstall! This is the great thing about running one of the Linux distros or one of the BSDs instead of M$ & Mac, you can have whatever you want to have for an OS, because you can customize it to YOUR way, and not to the M$ or Mac way - it's better than McD's (or is that Burger King or Wendy's?)